Various types of hydrofoils have been employed with powered ships. U.S. Pat. No. 4,027,614 (Jones) granted June 7, 1977, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,040,373 (Jones, Jr.) granted Aug. 9, 1977 show two such arrangements, in which the boats are powered by sails or engines.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,304 (Steinberg) granted Dec. 29, 1987 shows a hydrofoil arrangement on a windsurfer. Designed primarily to allow the user to change the angle of attack of its wings relative to the water, this arrangement employs a complicated pivoting mechanism.
In all of the above-mentioned prior devices, the hydrofoil arrangement is not intended or designed to be removed from the hull it is mounted on. Such permanent mounting limits the range of use of the associated water craft, since the craft are restricted to operation with a mounted hydrofoil. These prior-art arrangements are therefore not always suitable, and hydrofoils have consequently not been proposed for use with conventional surfboards. In surfboards, for example, the surfer may wish to be able to use the board not only for conventional wave surfing, but also for being towed behind a motorboat, and in such case the surfer should ideally be able to easily attach and remove hydrofoils from his board.
Accordingly, one important object of the present invention is to use hydrofoils with surfboards.
Another object of the invention is to allow easy mounting and detachment of the hydrofoils from surfboards.